


Narcissus, sans Echo

by Wilde_Shade



Category: BioShock Infinite
Genre: F/M, Mutual Masturbation, Self-cest
Language: English
Status: Completed
Published: 2013-04-18
Updated: 2013-04-18
Packaged: 2017-12-08 21:21:07
Rating: Explicit
Warnings: Creator Chose Not To Use Archive Warnings
Chapters: 1
Words: 2,211
Publisher: archiveofourown.org
Story URL: https://archiveofourown.org/works/766146
Author URL: https://archiveofourown.org/users/Wilde_Shade/pseuds/Wilde_Shade
Summary: <blockquote class="userstuff">
              <p>The Luteces get comfortable with the idea of sharing one reality.</p>
            </blockquote>





	Narcissus, sans Echo

**Author's Note:**

> I finished Bioshock Infinite and my brain absolutely refused to let me focus on important writing projects until I'd written some Lutece fic. So here it is. I am currently, have been, and will regret everything. Brain, I hope you are happy. It's unbeta'd and first-drafty, but here it is.
> 
> Apparently, extreme narcissism is kind of fluffy. I did not realize.

 

To Robert’s credit, he handled nosebleeds well.

 

“Shouldn’t you tilt your head back?” asked Rosalind, putting herself between the armchair and the fireplace. She could feel its warmth behind her as she offered her brother a clean handkerchief.

 

Robert looked up from where he sat, as if only now noticing her for the first time. “Hmm? …Oh. No.” He took the clean handkerchief from her. “Not unless I _want_ to swallow blood.”

 

Rosalind felt foolish. It was a strange feeling. “Of course. Why didn’t I know that?”

 

“I’m sure you did know that. You’d just never had need to stop and think about it.” Robert replaced the old handkerchief with the new one, passing the bloody one into his left hand. With no convenient or polite means of ridding himself of the thing, he awkwardly palmed it.

 

Rosalind frowned. Things were odd between them, there was no denying that. It was like seeing an old friend, the two of you much changed after many years apart. That’s what Rosalind imagined it was like, anyway. She didn’t actually have any old friends for comparison. With a sigh, she slid her hand beneath his, taking the bloody handkerchief from him and pocketing it to wash later. She pointedly ignored the startled embarrassment that passed across his face. “You’ve had a lot of nosebleeds then?”

 

“Not since I was fifteen.” said Robert, voice going slightly nasal when he pinched the bridge of his nose again.

 

It had occurred to Rosalind that their respective childhoods might share as many differences as they did similarities. She had hoped to discuss the many variables of both their lives in detail by now. For years, she had dreamed of the conversations they would have without all of time and space standing between them. Reality had other plans, though; messier and far more unpleasant plans, plans that involved hemorrhaging and repeated reassurances and a patient bedside manner Rosalind wasn’t entirely sure she posessed. But, assuming the worst of all that was behind them, “I take it you didn’t play well with the other children?”

 

“Not at first. I adapted… after a fashion.” Robert raised his head slightly, regarding Rosalind with familiar eyes. “What about you?”

 

“I hated other children. Most of my teachers, too.” Rosaline spoke with more venom than she’d intended. The past had always been in the past, before now. “I had a good idea of where my life would lead me and it wasn’t down a road they would have had me take.”

 

“You grew a thick skin.”

 

“Do you think so?”

 

“You had to be stronger than them.”

 

Rosalind tried very hard not to look too pleased. “You think I’m strong?"

 

“Stronger than me.”

 

“ _Really_?”

 

“Objectively speaking.”

 

“You’re more sociable than I am,” offered Rosalind, feeling a bit obligated to respond with a compliment.

 

“Am I?” asked Robert, feigning shock.

 

“You’re funny,” Rosalind explained, letting the words hang there for a moment, no longer sure whether or not she meant it as a compliment. “People like funny.”

 

“People don’t like you?”

 

“Not for my charming personality.”

 

“Not even men?”

 

“You mean romantically?”

 

“Yes.”

 

“Who has time for that?”

 

“Not you, I take it.”

 

“Do you?”

 

“Have time for men?”

 

“No, women.”

 

“Not really, no.”

 

“Do you?”

 

“Have time for women?”

 

“Yes, do you you have time for women?”

 

“I should hope not.” Rosalind hesitated for a moment. “Sometimes I do have a passing attraction to men. Is that something we share?”

 

Robert made a noncommittal hand motion and  bowed his head against his handkerchief again.

 

“I would rather there weren’t any secrets between us.”

 

“ _Can_ there be secrets between us?”

 

“I don’t know,” admitted Rosalind. “On the subject of men and women-“

 

“I am very sorry I ever brought that up.”

 

“Did you ever think of me?”

 

“In what context?”

 

“In a carnal context, obviously.”

 

Robert looked up at her suddenly, mouth slightly agape. “Of course not.”

 

“Really? Because, I thought of you,” Rosalind said, keeping the disappointment from her tone. “It was all very innocent when I was a girl, but I did mature and I do have needs. No one ever understood me, not really. Another me, though? That was the sort of thing I dreamt about. We would converse and experiment and… well, everything besides.” Rosalind clasped her hands in front of herself, the fire feeling warmer than ever behind her, too warm. “It’s very… lonely being us.”

 

Robert leaned against the arm of the chair and simply stared at her. They could have secrets, Rosalind realized. She did not know what her brother was thinking.

 

She pressed on. “Are you unhappy here?”

 

“Why do you ask?”

 

“Because you were willing to come to my reality. It was never really an issue – _who’s_ reality we coexisted in, I mean. I worry that if you are unhappy, it is exacerbating your condition. I may have been too eager to have you here. It was selfish.”

 

“I’m not sure there was any way around being _selfish_ in this particular situation.”

 

“Semantics.”

 

Robert leaned forward in the armchair and took Rosalind’s hand in his own. “I’m not unhappy,” he said firmly. There was an instant flutter of relief in Rosalind’s chest, but she worked to keep her expression an impassive one. “I thought of you, too.”

 

The impassive expression faltered. Rosalind could feel a smile tugging at her lips. “Oh?”

 

Robert nodded, his expression turning thoughtful as he continued to hold on to Rosalind’s hand, running his thumb over the dips and peaks of her knuckles. “Every day, for as long as I can remember… Of course, in these fantasies you weren’t a woman.”

 

The urge to smile won out. Rosalind laughed. “And you weren’t a man in mine.”

 

“I suppose beggars shouldn’t be choosers.”

 

“I would never make you beg.” Rosalind pulled her hand away, raising it instead to the top button of her blouse. “Just ask nicely.”

 

There were several seconds of silence. Robert raised an eyebrow, inclining his head without ever taking his eyes from her. “Please,” he said at last.

 

Rosalind unbuttoned her blouse and let it tumble to the floor. Corset cover came next, then skirt. She stepped out of the latter, pushing it aside with the heel of her boot. “Should I continue?”

 

“By all means.”

 

“Unlace me then.” Rosalind turned her back to Robert and sat down on his knee, taking a cruel amount of pleasure in how abruptly he leaned away. She said nothing, though. She waited. Robert recovered soon enough, fingers starting hesitantly with her laces then making quick work of them as they gained reassurance.

 

The corset loosened then opened. Rosalind felt Robert trace the length of her spine with a deliciously clinical touch. From the base of her spine, it moved up again, touching in turn her shoulder blades then following upward along her neck. She was a little surprised when her hair came down, falling across her back in haphazard waves after hours of being so meticulously confined.

 

Rosalind pushed her hair back as she stood. She removed her corset and turned to face Robert, one arm across her breasts. The look in his eyes was a wonderful one, somehow intimate and detached all at once. Rosalind raised her right foot between his legs. “Again,” she said.

 

Robert started to unlace her boot, but stopped, his attention drawn elsewhere. “May I?”

 

“Of course.”

 

Robert pushed back the thin fabric of her petticoat, gathering it up around her right hip then coming down with her stocking. He explored the light musculature of her calf, traced with interest a faint birthmark on the inside of her thigh, and when finished squeezed her knee.

 

Rosalind jumped, giving a startled, mirthless laugh as she slapped his hand away. “Do not tickle me,” she warned.

 

Hands raised in supplication, Robert made an insincere show of his complete innocence. “That was entirely for science. How could I not check?” Moving on, he removed the boot and then the stocking. He did the same for the next foot when prompted.

 

Rosalind stepped away from him then. She removed her petticoat last, pushing it aside to sit in a heap with the rest of her discarded clothing; all of it, actually.

 

Embarrassment flickered to life in Rosalind’s mind for the first time, but only briefly.

 

“My, my,” sighed Robert. “I make an absolutely stunning woman.”

 

“Thank you.” Rosalind let her arm fall from her breasts and turned slowly for his benefit. “Now,” she said, stopping to give her brother an appraising look. “If you are feeling better, I should very much like to see what kind of man _I_ make.”

 

“You know, I suddenly find myself feeling much better.”

 

Robert had taken off his jacket before she even got to the chair. He was removing his tie when she straddled him. “Let me,” she said, and Robert did. His vest and shirt joined their quickly growing collection of clothing a few feet away.

 

Rosalind touched the groove between clavicle and neck and felt the shoulders so much broader than hers. She laid her head down at his chest and delighted in hearing a heartbeat that both was and was not her own. For just a moment she was a teenager again, alone at night with her thoughts and the world-weary knowledge that, outside her bedroom door, outside of her mind, everyone was so very, very dull. Rosalind looked up when Robert pushed her hair back from her face. Being here now was like being alone without being lonely; near perfect.

 

Rosalind sat up, more determined than ever to finish what she had started. Undressing him further, however, proved somewhat difficult.  “Don’t be uncooperative.”

 

“I’m _not_ being uncooperative, I’m just uncertain about the logistics of what you are trying to accomplish here… Maybe if you let me stand up?”

 

“Well, go on then.” Rosalind sat back down in the armchair once Robert had vacated it. She leaned back, crossed her legs then leaned against the opposite armrest and re-crossed them. She sighed, then, when that didn’t have the desired effect, spoke up. “Be quick about it.”

 

Robert threw his pants at her. Unfazed, Rosalind caught and began to fold them.

 

“Well?” he asked.

 

“Hmm.” Rosalind sat the folded trousers aside. “Spin for me… Oh, yes. Very nice. I am handsome as well as remarkably intelligent. How wonderful.” She motioned him over. “Come back here.”

 

Robert sat back down. Rosalind maneuvered herself back into his lap. She cupped his face and kissed him. They both had the same idea of how a kiss should work and who should lead. She felt Robert smile at the awkwardness of it against her mouth. He moved down then, kissing her jaw, her neck.

 

Rosalind inhaled sharply, her mind back in that bedroom again, back in her fantasies. Different as this was, it was real enough now. She found one of his hands and guided it between her legs. With his fingers she rubbed herself, patiently showing him where and when to alternate a rhythm that seemed to come naturally to both of them. She let his free hand guide hers and grasped him, stroking him as he touched her.

 

Neither of them needed much instruction. Rosalind slid her fingers through Robert’s hair, gripping it tight when she kissed him so as to angle his head back. She demanded to lead and Robert let her, his own left hand exploring the curves of her body, stopping only when he got to her breasts. 

 

Rosalind bit him when he squeezed. It didn’t discourage him. She hadn’t intended it to. The differences in their bodies were strange, but they both spoke the same language of subtle movements and appreciative moans. They both knew each other. Fast, slow, fast again, desperate; they were so synchronized, it was almost simultainious, like he was some extra part of her gone numb.

 

Robert tensed. Rosalind held her breath. Her consciousness seemed to expand outside of her as they both came. For a few seconds she was only dimly aware of their tangle of limbs and altogether uncertain of where she ended and he began. Robert caught her gaze and kept her there. It was several long minutes before either of them said anything, though it felt to Rosalind like no time at all.

 

“We’ll have to do that again.”

 

“Indeed.”

 

Together, they gathered their clothes. They readied for bed and talked late into the night discussing things both scientific and mundane. Rosalind thought Robert to be a wonderful conversationalist.

 

“The sun is coming up,” he said.

 

“So it is.”

 

“No more nosebleeds tonight.”

 

“I noticed.” Rosalind pulled the bedcovers over both of them, sending several pages of notes flying.

 

Robert turned off the lamp near the bed, but the sun was just outside and the room didn’t get much darker. “Well, goodnight… You know, I do believe I might be in love with you.”

 

Rosalind smiled to herself and turned onto her side. “Of course you are.”

 

“Does that mean you’re in love with me, too?” Robert reached out and pulled her close. Rosalind was used to always having a bed just to herself, but this felt acceptable.

 

“Of course I am,” she said, resting her hand over his. “I always have been.”

 


End file.
